How to Eliminate Brown Patches from your Lawn

What’s worse than spending all that time caring and maintaining your lawn only to discover ugly, large brown patches of grass? It’s so frustrating that it often causes many homeowners to give up on tending to the lawn all together. So what can you do to eliminate this problem and prevent it from occurring again?

Here are a few solutions to your brown patches of grass problem:

Identify the problem. Your grass could turn brown for several reasons such as poor soil, fungus infection, overwatering, or overfeeding. Once you know what the issue is, finding a solution becomes a great deal easier.

Compacted soil occurs on heavily used lawns. The foot traffic packs the soil together more tightly, preventing grass roots from properly growing and expanding. Heavy clay soil is particularly susceptible to this type of problem. Try to alleviate compacted soil by minimizing the amount of traffic on your lawn by creating a walkway made of stepping stones, for example.

Often times too much sun is a bad thing, especially reflected sunlight which increases the risk of heat related damage to the grass, turning it brown. This is common in areas where light reflects off large windows, light-colored walls and other paved surfaces. Quickly remedy this problem by watering these sun-baked areas of the lawn more frequently.

Be careful about over-fertilizing your lawn. Lawn fertilizers contain nitrogen and too much of it can burn your grass. Determine the fertilizer requirements for your lawn and stay within that range.

Large, brown circles are also a sign of brown patch fungus which requires anti-fungal treatments. It is recommended that lawn fungus control products are applied every other week. On average, three applications need to me made.

Lack of water can cause your grass to turn brown. Water your grass a few times a week and always in the morning. Be careful not to water too much or this can flood the grass, subsequently washing out essential nutrients. On the other hand, too little watering causes your grass to dry out.

Be careful how low you mow your lawn. Mowing too low weakens grass leaving it more susceptible to disease, fungus and drought, all which will turn your grass brown.

Brown patches in your lawn can sneak up quickly, even during the best conditions. Keep an eye out for them and follow the above mentioned steps, and your lawn should be green, lush and vibrant all season long.